Sunday, August 26, 2012

Reincarnated and Redefined: Eternal Evil (1985)

When a burned-out TV commercial director learned how to control out-of-body experiences ala Astral Projection from a mysterious dancer, he soon finds out that this power is starting to get out of hand when those that go against him starts to die off every time he goes to sleep.

A detective tries to put the pieces together, which includes reviewing a case concerning an elderly couple who claims to have successfully remove their souls from their bodies from time to time to experience the Astral plane. But as more bodies began to pile up, all killed in similar fashion, it's a matter of time before the inexplicable truth comes at hand.

Which put me in place to review this movie made by the director of My Bloody Valentine, George Mihalka. It's not often we get to see a slasher flick doing a subject as spiritually wide as Astral projection. Truth be told, I never was that knowledgeable about out-of-body experiences nor does it interests me so grasping this movie's plot of a killer roaming around in the astral plane, with the ability to mutilate its victims from the inside took a while to sink in.

Most of its time, Eternal Evil is more of a thriller than a slasher film, where the focus was mainly on the investigation surrounding the murders, as well as the notion of metaphysical planar worlds. It's pretty bloodless and the movie's slow-moving build-up sometimes gets to you, but by the time the twist reveal was given away, the movie finally gets to its feet, for at least ten to fifteen minutes away from the ending.

I guess the main problem I have with this movie is that I never felt the dread nor the tension surrounding the mystery. Its there, the idea of something evil that can't be seen (other than as a blue light, hence the movie's alternate title), but can be sensed does calls for some chills, but it's too far-fetched to be taken seriously, thus it never went hand-in-hand with the movie's serious tone.

Eternal Evil, however, still made itself worthwhile of a viewing. Pacing aside, the story does have something to make for itself, in a B-movie sense that is.

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About Me

I'm a Filipino Nerd with a penchant for all things weird, messy and overly theatrical. Loves to draw, write, and read at a highschool level.
Has a thing for slashers, monsters, comic books, Doctor Who and collecting knick-knacks such as a certain line of toys based on a 2010 reboot of an 80s cartoon about talking, rainbow colored ponies.